Chasing Waves and Smashing Glass Ceilings

Bianca Valenti chats with Shondaland about why she’s an advocate for women surfing the big swells.

By
Momo Chang

Apr 2, 2018

Getty ImagesBRIAN BIELMANN / Sprout Photo

When surfing originated in the Pacific Islands hundreds of years ago, women in Hawai’isurfed alongside men. In fact, it wasn't until Western missionaries arrived in the 1800s that women were discouraged from surfing — but that hasn't stopped them from doing it anyway.

The sport eventually made its way to the small California beachside town of Santa Cruz in 1885, and since at least the mid-20th century, women like legendary Native Hawaiian Rell Sunn have surfed the big waves of Makaha in Oahu. John John Florence, one of the best surfers in the world today, credits his mom for teaching him how to surf. Look closely and you'll find incredible women in the water around the world. And Bianca Valenti is one of them.

Valenti grew up less than a mile from Doheny Beach in Dana Point, CA, where she was raised by a single mom who supported her love of the ocean and where she learned to surf at age 7. Now, she’s putting in the work to change the way the world views women surfers in a white male-dominated sport. Along with fellow surfers Paige Alms, Keala Kennelly, and Andrea Moller, Valenti co-founded the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing (CEWS) to advocate for the women’s division at Mavericks, an invitation-only winter surfing competition. This year's meet was ultimately cancelled due to ocean conditions, but it would have included a women’s division for the first time, featuring six women, including Valenti. CEWS also partners with the Oakland, CA-based Brown Girl Surf, which creates access for young women of color to learn how to surf.

Valenti's impressive feats include being one of the first women to surf Mavericks near Half Moon Bay (Sarah Gerhardt is the first known woman to surf there) and recently, attempting a monster wave at Peʻahi, a surf break also known as Jaws, in Maui. On the mainland, Valenti works at her family’s Italian restaurant in Marin County to make ends meet and lives just steps from San Francisco’s notoriously moody Ocean Beach.

We caught up with the big wave charger about the joy of chasing the next big wave, why wiping out is healthy, and the future of a more diverse surfing world.

Momo Chang: Do you remember the first time you surfed and who taught you?

Bianca Valenti: Yes, I do. My mom [and I], we would go down to the beach. [One day,] I was standing up on my boogie board, riding it, [and] my mom saw the love, and was like, "Hey, do you want to try a hardboard?" — like a real surfboard.

We went around to all the local surf shops, but there were no boards in our budget. There was one covered in skull and crossbones and the guy was like, "Well, this one’s $75... [but] if you come back, we can repaint it and take off all the skull and crossbones." So we went back to the surf shop the next day, got the board, and my mom took me down to Doheny Beach, which is in Dana Point. It’s a really small wave. She just put her chair right at the water’s edge and said, "Have fun, and you better not make me come out there and rescue you." And that was it. I went to surf camp the very next week.

MC: Did you mostly learn on your own? Were there people who mentored or taught you?

BV: My cousin. He liked to boogie board, and he could do tricks. I remembered a talk I had with him and I was like, "I really want to do the tricks you’re doing" — and same with surfing — "but I’m scared to wipe out." And he [said], "You got to wipe out to get good. It’s just like a video game. You have to die first on every level until you pass it." So I just had that drilled into my head from when I was 7, from my coolest cousin in the world, that you have to wipe out to get good. What he was saying was, you will learn from your failures.

MC: There are a lot of ways to surf. What draws you to big wave surfing, or surfing waves from 15 to 100 feet?

You got to wipe out to get good. You learn from your failures.

BV: What motivates me is that same feeling that I had when I was 7 years old and fell in love with surfing. The sensation of riding the wave — it’s transcendent. When you’re riding a wave, it’s something new, you’re not thinking about anything else. You become totally present. And I love going fast! On big waves, you go really fast.

What [originally drew] me to big waves was just an evolution of my progression in surfing. A one-foot wave, at first, was really scary and exciting for me. Once I learned and became comfortable with one-foot waves, then I went up to two- or three-foot. It was a long road to getting to big waves, and many, many hours in the water. That feeling of when you’re a little kid, you have these huge dreams — big waves ignite that fire for me still.

MC: When I watch videos of surfers dropping down the big waves, my stomach kind of churns, but it looks incredible. You have to really be present, and the ocean is unpredictable. It must feel amazing.

BV: Yeah, and that is something that never gets old. The world is such a big place. And sometimes you feel so small, [and] you can just get bombarded by the daily activities of life and it starts to feel like you’re confined and trapped. So many times, I’m the only one out there [in the water]. It just makes you feel like a speck of sand, but at the same time, anything is possible.

It’s the times I feel most alive and most certain about living. That’s what inspires me the most, are those moments on the big waves. And it was always like that for me, from when I was 7. That’s what my mom saw — she saw how much I loved it, how much strength and growth and joy surfing brought me. And she encouraged it, and I’m thankful for that. When you’re out in the ocean, and all of a sudden a dolphin swims by you, it never gets old. It’s just miraculous.

MC: You're one of the few women in the world riding the big waves. What is that like?

BV: Being a woman in big waves means you’re a minority, which has its set of challenges and its set of opportunities, as well. The challenge, I’d say, is to [find an] instant camaraderie, like when you do playing with all women in sports. At the same time, it makes the friendships that you build very special. The other [challenge] is feeling comfortable with being a part of something where there’s not other people who look like you doing it.

If there’s an emergency, I’m someone you’d want to have around.

There’s a lack of competitive opportunities for women surfers, so when you’re one of the best, that’s very frustrating. That’s something that I’ve been working very hard towards changing. There’s a lack of support in sponsorship dollars and in media coverage, overall, for women. [One] of the challenges that I’ve faced since my youth is opening the surfing magazine and never seeing a representation of someone like me, because it’s all guys. Or watching surf movies, and the only women portrayed are girls in bikinis on the beach.

It inspires me to just always want to be better at surfing, because what I realized is when I go surfing — pretty much every single time I go surfing — there’s always going to be guys in the water. But they might not have ever seen a woman who surfs like me. You see their mind open, and their mind change, and [watch them begin to] see women in a new light. I think [this mindset] has enabled me to become a sort of equalizer and a role model for strong women.

MC: When you're one of the only women out there waiting to catch a big wave, what are some comments that men have said?

BV: Especially at the waves I surf, that are expert level, there’s always going to be a questioning of some sort. Kind of a look like, "What are you doing here? Are you good enough? Do you even know what you’re doing?" There’s these microaggressions that come out that are basically posturing, like they’re posturing to be alpha.

It’s not even my skill — I’m one of the best water people out there. If there’s an emergency, I’m someone you’d want to have around. There is just a pecking order in surfing, and probably other sports too, that seems exacerbated when you’re female.

MC: Do you feel that the culture around surfing and representation in the media has changed at all to be more inclusive of women and minorities?

BV: If I do something awesome, I can post it on social media and everyone can access it. We’re not depending so much on magazines and media to cover women’s sports, although we need them to step up more.

It’s easier in the internet age to hold organizations and individuals and media accountable, to a certain [extent]. We now have resources to share awesome things. We have really powerful resources to connect and make change. We don’t get dependent on print advertisement, or just TV. In that respect, I think we’re starting to see more diversity in athletes and role models. At the same [time], we still really need big organizations and corporations, TV channels, and movies, to celebrate diversity of human beings and of awesome people.

So have I seen a cultural change? Yeah, I guess it’s just that it’s coming slowly. It’s still got a long, long way to go to create true equality. It’s easier now to research and show [what] we gain from celebrating different types of role models, different athletes, and to focus on the skill sets. We know that diversity creates strength.

Momo Chang is a freelance writer based in Oakland, CA. She has attempted to surf about a dozen times so far. Follow her on Twitter: @momochang_oak.

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